Behind Her Glasses
by Last Ride Of The Valkyries
Summary: Halsey was a mother not just to Miranda Keyes, but 75 SPARTANs. Moments through her eyes depicting the weakness and love she wasn't allowed to show. I have taken a bit of liberty with this, so please tell me how the unorganised writing style works for me.
1. Σφερια

**A/N: This is just a one-shot defending Halsey that I just had to write. I do not like the way that 343 portrayed her, near the end of Spartan Ops, but I guess that years of slavery for something which your masters asked you to do can make a person bitter. These moments are designed to depict Halsey in a slightly more human light and defend her from the people who have only played Halo 4 that are accusing her of being cruel just because O.N.I. (a.k.a. hypocrisy central) has accused her of crimes against humanity.**

**I apologise in advance for the skipping around and tense swapping, but I felt that that was the best way to write this.**

**By the way, I have avoided breaking the rule about not writing about non-fictional characters by not using His name. Trust me, you'll know who He is supposed to be, but, for all intents and purposes, He is a person from the Halo universe that just so happens to draw a ton of parallels to someone in real life.**

**Fairly long A/N over. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.**

* * *

Σφερια

* * *

A wave of pure force swept over the desert. The light was blinding as that of a miniature sun. Indeed, the man averted his eyes despite wearing three layers of tinted glass with varying levels of polarisation that would allow him to stare into the sun for hours.

The bomb was a new breed. It didn't use chemicals and heat. Its fuel source was destruction on a magnitude to end the world. His world. He had signed onto a project to build the weapon capable to destroy it. Words from the Song of God filled his mind. "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." He muttered them aloud, but no one heard. The sonic boom had been enormous. His ears were still ringing, and everyone else's were, too.

A day later, the results were in. A fifteen kiloton payload was more than enough to convince the enemy that their war was wrong, but justification of his actions would always be impossible.

He wasn't a depraved man, but he was practical. Iwo Jima and Okinawa had taken just as many total lives as this bomb could, and although THEY had used civilians as human shields, this bomb was not merciful. It could not hunt out the belligerents and kill them only. Indeed, he would end the world for an entire city to save the rest of the world. He only hoped humanity would never again have to take up this mantle for destruction and war, have to harm innocents to save innocents. Total war was ugly, but it was that which must be done. Right?

* * *

Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey had never been religious, but in that moment, that moment of sheer terror as she realised what she had wrought, a quote from the Bhagavad Gita filled her mind. "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

Although, really, if the sin of hubris so great was not so bad, she may have claimed to have _created_ Death, swathed in robes of dark green not unlike the colours of an evergreen pine forest. And that was even worse. Not to be Death meant not controlling it. Not controlling the Shroud for All Men was dangerous beyond all reckoning. For what if they fell as Lucifer fell, streaked like lightning painted in the sky?

But if they did not fall, they would assure the ascendancy of all others. So she had to teach them to control themselves. The first test taught them teamwork. Work together, that the others might hold you up, should you fall.

* * *

She watched as they raced for dinner. One-one-seven was fast. But the others were slow. He pushed them down and did not stop to help them get up. Who would help him if he fell? She silently corrected herself. When.

The next day, one-one-seven was slower, but he was slower because he helped the others. He was becoming more human, that she might recast him as machine, and then as hero.

Humans had names. Machines did not. Heros were human. He would learn this, in time. The others would too. They were to be heros. They were to be humans. They were to have names. His was John.

* * *

There were others to watch. Jai, Adriana. They did not like to work together. That could be useful, but first, she would have to teach them that they might have to. She would have to push them off the cliff and catch them, prove that they needed to work together.

Then came Mike. Mike was unexpected. He was independent, but he was also part of a team. Maybe he could teach Jai and Adriana to be part of the team.

He held them up, and they held him up. By having them work together, they held each other up without losing their individuality.

* * *

At last, they were ready for their test. She told them that only the best could win. They were to make it to a ship, racing against the others to survive and get a ride home. She hoped they would figure out a way to get everyone aboard, but she had doubted it.

That was her first error. Then was when she realised that she had not helped to forge soldiers. She had helped to shape something more than men. They were all heroes, but some of them were legends. And legends could do the impossible. That was their job.

John was a legend, or he would be. Gathering up seventy-four kids that he had lived with, learnt with, and developed the perfect team with was no difficulty for a legend. All he had to do was hold up his team and get the entire group onto the Pelican. And he had. They had become a single unit, the perfect team.

* * *

The next thing was bravery. She remembered giving a speech about fear. It had been filled with platitudes designed to reassure seventy-five seven-year-olds, but one line among them all stood out. It was a truth hidden in lies. "Against the wraiths wrapped in darkness, there is no defence, and therefore, no fear." It was the one line she hoped they would remember. There was no reason to be swayed by fear of death, for death was inescapable. The only way to become immortal was to become more than a man and then pass into the mists of time, twisting into legend. And her children could all do that. Of that, she was sure.

She had lied when she had said they would "become the defenders of Earth and her colonies." They were the defenders of humanity, defenders of the Mantle. Immortality was easy for them. They just needed to realise it.

Teaching bravery would set them on the path to halt their fear of death, and by doing do, make them timeless, undying, immortal. The first step was a leap off of the precipice of safety into a sea of danger and uncertainty. They had to trust that someone would catch them. For that, they needed their teamwork. Once they had that, they could abolish fear, abandon anger, absolve themselves of hate and become the heroes they needed to be.

They needed to understand why they were killing. Hatred was not a reason. Hatred was strong, but unwieldy. Without understanding why to take the lives, they would become machines, ceasing to be men. And they were men, no matter what the others thought. So they needed to be brave.

They were given parachutes and told to jump. Without exception, they leapt. Without exception, they landed safely.

Without exception, they were told of the risks. Without exception, they accepted the procedure. Some died, but they died bravely.

* * *

Finally, logic. For who could control themselves if they could not decide what was best? They learnt from Déjà the rules of life.

They learnt how to think and observe and deduce and decide what was best. When they were old enough to understand the draft, they knew that it was a necessary evil.

They were a new weapon, but they were also more than that. They were heroes, inspiration. They were humanity's best, and they would defend it because humanity needed them. What were the deaths of a few during a process that would grant the survivors the ability to save the many? This they knew, and they also knew the risks, but they went ahead. Logic deemed it the answer.

She was just as sad as they, if not more so. After all, she was their mother. It was fine to be sad, for the thing was that which must be done, not the thing which they wished to be done.

* * *

She remembered a speech she had given to tie her teachings together, to remind her children why they fought. She had opened with a quote. "George S. Patton once said, 'Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men.' Remember this, for you are all of you human. There will be those who do not belive. Do not listen to their lies. You, you are the key to victory, but more than that, you are the key to humanity. Remind the UNSC why we fight.

"We fight for a better world. A world where Insurrectionists cannot harm innocents. And we cannot lose, for they use weapons. Bombs, guns, ships. These are but tools. You though, you are men and women, heroes and legends. You are immortal in the minds and stories of men. With your help, with the power of man and woman, we shall claim victory everlasting."

The speech had been short, but it had been enough. Her SPARTANs, her children. They were ready.

* * *

She was sad. When Noble team had entered the cavern, or rather, when Catherine-B320 had contacted her, she knew her mission was a failure. Someone had seen her children as tools, nothing more. Someone had failed to recognise that they were more than just machines, lives to be traded for time. Someone had forced children to make the ultimate sacrifice when it didn't need to be made. Hers were enough, for they gave hope. Secrets couldn't give hope.

And worse, no one had been there to love these new SPARTANs. That she could see just in the difference between Jorge, her own son (indeed, she almost let herself fancy that his 'ma'am' was 'mum', in that heavy accent of his), and these new, cold SPARTANs. Some would say hers too were cold, but they just didn't know them the way she knew them. They didn't love them the way she secretly loved them.

And then, to find that Kurt and Mendez had trained these SPARTAN-IIIs, that was the ultimate abomination. She knew that they had only been following orders, and that they had tried to watch their charges, tried to love them.

But nearly one thousand SPARTANs (too many to love properly), all dead just because someone in the brass wanted his own private army, that was abomination. Marines knew why they fought and took their guns willingly. SPARTANs were told why they fought and were given guns. Conscription was not the answer, not when it didn't need to be done. And her SPARTANs were more than enough.

After all, the last of the new SPARTANs were with her in the shield world. They couldn't help even though Kurt had given his life to save those of his mother and his children and his brother and sisters.

Luckily, John was still out there. But if the universe _did_ need more SPARTANs, well, it would have to settle.

* * *

She was angry. For the first time, she was truly angry at one of her children. She had watched as John punched out Jacob's face.

Yes, she knew that they had been estranged. Yes, she knew that he was dead already. Yes, she knew that John didn't know. Yes, Halsey understood. But that didn't mean she liked it.

There were many things Halsey didn't know. But the thing, the secret thing that troubled her most was why she had said no. He was a handsome man, a loving man, and they had a daughter. Maybe, if she had said yes, Miranda would be here to comfort her (and she could comfort Miranda), rather than estranged and living on Earth. But Halsey had to be strong because another thing she didn't know was what her SPARTANs, her other children, (the ones Jacob had also had a hand in, although admittedly less) would do if had seen her cry over the death of a seemingly unrelated naval officer.

After all, John had only played his helmet feed for her.

* * *

Reach had been their home. They gave their lives defending it. They became martyrs for humanity, whether humanity knew they were dead or not (because hope was such a powerful tool). They had been conscripted, told what to believe, yes, but they were far more than robotic warriors, dying because they were told to. They were heroes, people she loved, people who died because of what they knew to be right. They needed humanity far more than humanity needed them. Humanity was their holding point, the connector that forged them as heroes.

But some of them were far more than heroes. Those who had leapt into the fiery death that burned Reach and had been rejected by the flame became something more than martyred heroes. Their limbs had been washed in liquid flame and their bones had been streaked with thunder. Some had not survived this process to become legends, just as some had not survived the process of fusing muscle and steel, skin and armour in order to become heroes.

And, as she had feared for their lives then, so too did she fear for their lives now. Some had survived. Kelly, Fred, Will, Anton, Li, Grace. Issac and Vihn. They had survived only to be cut down before John rescued the rest.

John. He had done something more. While aboard this ship, he had told her and the rest about the Halo and . . . and the Flood.

He had bathed in death, and from it, risen stronger. He was more than a man, for he had had his muscle fused with steel and his armour had become his skin. He was more than a hero, for his limbs had been washed in liquid flame and his bones had been streaked with thunder. And he was more than a legend, for he had survived the Flood, had bathed in the waters of death that even the Forerunners drowned in.

But what was more than legend? Myth? Nay. Heracles had been a real man, once. And then he became a hero, then a legend, and now, now he was faded, not even a memory. His deeds were remembered, but his humanity was lost to time. And as she had stripped John of his humanity, she would give it back to him. She would not let the rest take that from him again. After all, what mother would deny her son that?

* * *

SPARTANs were not supposed to be emotionally charged, nor were they supposed to be sentimental, but that did not mean that they _weren't_. She had known them almost as long as they had known themselves. And they were willing to turn a blind eye to their sentimentality that the spooks couldn't see. They were blind to the small actions. Her SPARTANs were not sociopathic. They just communicated in smaller ways. A smile behind the helmet that only she and the SPARTANs could see. A change in pitch, subtle but still there. The way they took a step.

Even they were mostly blind to the changes. But she, she could see. She could pick out the tiny changes, and she knew the timbre of his voice when he promised something. John was her prodigy. She had watched him, but really, it was Cortana who had decided his secret. Luck was a part of it, but the other was a loyalty and love to outlast or even end the foul covenants of man and beast.

So when he promised he would come see her again, she believed him.

_Now he is gone, but he'll be back._

_After all, SPARTANs never die, right?_

_And he, out of all of them, he has never yet lied. John isn't one to break a streak._

So Halsey wasn't worried about a jail. No. A jail would never separate her from her SPARTANs, especially when a promise had been made.

She was far more worried about Cortana. Halsey had hacked computers in her free time (of which there was a lot aboard the Ivanoff Research Station when Parangosky was not using Halsey's intellect to study artifacts recovered from Halo Installation 03). She had watched what happened on his side of the armour on High Charity. The irony of his hunting the so-called Prophet of Truth aboard the Covenant's floating Capitol _after_ RED FLAG had been declared a failure didn't escape her.

She watched as Cortana parted with him. And he, he couldn't feel it, and maybe she couldn't either, but Halsey knew. She always knew.

But when he promised something as simple as seeing her again, Halsey wasn't worried. After all, they were _her_ SPARTANs. There was no justification for her actions, only that it was that which must be done, but she loved them all the same.

* * *

She had half of the Janus key. Her plans to see John and any other surviving SPARTANs had been put on hold, but not indefinitely. She just had to trick Jul 'Mdama into manoeuvring her into John's way. After all, she had half the key as a bargaining chip with humanity.

She had first seen the Librarian in the hope that she could tell Halsey about John. That Laksy hadn't told her that one of her few remaining children was still alive was horrid, but at least he'd sent a rescue team for her.

They weren't _her_ children, but they were volunteers. They had not been subjected to the life her children had, so they could not be the heroes her children were. At least they had not been subjected to the terrors her children had.

She wondered how many of her children had survived to remember those horrors. Maybe, once she had cast off the shackles of Jul's heresy, she could find them. She was an old woman now. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to hug them now and tell them all the things she regretted not telling.

But first she had to convince 'Mdama not to kill her.

But once she had said goodbye, she would be willing to die.

After all, her children were human. Heroes, legends, yes, but all humans died. Maybe she could find her children in another life and apologise for that which she had done, even if it had been necessary.

And then she would find Jacob and Miranda. She would try to rebuild her life.

* * *

**A/N: I am not touching Red Team being lost in space because my story Drifting By and By will cover that (yes, I have decided to continue that after I finish Fireteam Nebula: Stories of SPARTAN-IVs).**

**Just to be clear, these are the good moments only. This is to defend Halsey, but I do recogmise that she isn't perfect. I just don't believe she is a monster.**

**But please, tell me how this writing experiment works for me, and as always, please tell me if I have errors, whether grammatical, factual, or otherwise. Thanks!**

* * *

**For those of you who don't speak/read Greek, the title is Sferia, or Sphere. Something about the unity and coming together of Halsey's life.**


	2. Σοφια

**A/N: Yes, this was supposed to be a one-shot, but I came with more stuff to write about, so, here it is. Should I leave it as a second chapter or just merge it with the first?**

**As before, I have avoided using names so that we stay in the parallel halo-verse.**

**Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.**

* * *

Σοφια

* * *

"A man far wiser than I once said, 'Religion is the opiate of the masses.'"

A man, balding, but with enough vigour to run a marathon, crossed over to the mantel and set down his glass. He turned to look at the man who had first spoken. He was sitting in a plush red armchair with his legs crossed. His hair was black and his face was clean-shaven.

The bald man nodded and said, "Yes, religion is indeed an opiate. But it is also a nail. And we are the hammer. Strike at it, and it only goes deeper. What we must do is wait. Ignore the nail, and it falls out."

The sitting man nodded and took a sip from his own glass. "So be it. The Red Revolution is already underway. Not even the strength of God shall stand in the way of freedom."

* * *

Halsey sat down in the room. A tall man with grey hair sat opposite her. A metal table lay between the pair. "I heard that you have been working on a project to make super-soldiers."

Halsey held her head high. "Yes. The insurrectionists have grown brash. You built your Magnetic Accelerator Cannons to punish insurrectionists, but that, that is far too much. You've shown your inability to effectively resist the insurrectionist threats, and they have gotten more powerful as a result.

"What you need is a weapon that isn't a weapon. You need to walk among them, silent and invisible. You need a weapon that can uproot the entire organism, a warrior above the rest. You need a SPARTAN."

"And what makes a SPARTAN better than a MAC blast?" the man asked.

"The insurrection is a nail, and firepower is a hammer. You need wraiths, shadows, to remove this infection. And it is an infection. It convinces people that their government is corrupt. It turns them. You need the insurrectionists' bogeyman, a supernatural predator that kills by striking fear into the hearts of prey. You need SPARTANs."

"We'll take seventy-five." The man pushed back his chair and walked out of the room.

A week later, she was several billion dollars richer.

* * *

O.N.I. had contracted her, so why were they punishing her?

* * *

The questioner asked again. "Why did you do it?"

She responded as she always had. "Because you asked it of me. I sat at a table very like this one, and you sat opposite me. We talked, and then you left. I was given enough funds for seventy-five, the same number that you had ordered." She took the interrogation quite calmly for an old lady handcuffed to a table.

At last, the interrogator changed tactics. "So why did you use children? And I don't want any of that 'more accepting of augmentations' bullshit. Of the seventy-five you 'recruited', thirty-three survived to become SPARTANs." She flinched when he mentioned the deaths of her children. "Plus, we have a nearly perfect system for augmenting new SPARTAN-IVs. Just be glad that we aren't discussing Kurt-051's SPARTAN-IIIs. Although it all connects to Ackerson, we'll find your fingerprints eventually. And then you'll be down a rabbit hole."

She ignored the mention of Kurt and his SPARTAN-IIIs. That hurt, but it couldn't be helped now. "Do you know the story of Demeter and Demophon?" She sighed long and heavily. "I suppose your knowledge of it doesn't really matter. Know only that even the gods could only do so much.

"Demeter, wrapped in a mist of mortality, was given hospitality by the monarchs lf a small Greek state. To reward them, she took the family's son Demophon and bathed him in ambrosia and fire and wove godly songs all around him.

"From these, he grew strong. So strong that his mother began to question what Demeter was doing, disguised as she was. One night, she laid awake and saw as Demeter put her child into the flame. She cried out and prevented Demeter from burning away his mortality.

"And so Demophon died a mortal death. This is the result of your meddling. I would have given these children that I have raised as though my own fame and immortality. Instead, all but those destined to become legends anyway have perished.

"Remember well that even gods have limits. To truly become a god, or even a SPARTAN, one must be anointed from birth."

The questioner was silent for a moment before asking, "Are you implying that Reach was our fault?"

* * *

Reach. The final bastion of humanity before the fall of Earth. And it had fallen. She was still alive and still on Reach, yes, but most of her SPARTANs were dead. She had no illusions as to the survival of her children, of her loved ones. Miranda was probably the only survivor.

Jacob, John, Jerome, the rest. They were noble and she loved them all for it, but their loyalty to Reach had probably killed them all. RED FLAG was a failure before it had officially started, but that wasn't what she cared about.

She cared that they had died. She knew that they would have died, because Reach was not just some planet. It was their home. It was also the home of humanity's hope. And SPARTANs were humanity's hope. They fought for all places, the survival of all humans. Anywhere lost souls cried for justice, her SPARTANs were needed. So they would have died as humanity's last hope died, as the last bastion against the Covenant died.

She knew this, but still she hoped.

* * *

Halsey watched as her body jerked and screamed in pain, but she did nothing. It was hard to stand there, separated only by a glass box, but she had to. The compiler was almost complete, so disrupting the process now would only hurt the child inside.

So Halsey watched as her clone was stripped of the thoughts and ideas that made it an individual. She listened to its every scream, knowing that this was just one of the things she would have to do to atone. To create a life from one still alive, even if it was a comatose clone that had been alive for only two weeks, was illegal.

But she needed the artificial intelligence, and the only way it would be good enough was if it was her. So she had stolen cloning technology and cloned herself. She had put the clone in an incubator and then the matrix compiler. It had begun screaming, but Halsey watched. She had to see its pain, know her guilt, and still be able te reassure herself that it, or she, had not died in vain.

So when she writhed for the last time, she felt some sort of perverse relief in her death. A new entity could now emerge, a phoenix from the flame that had consumed Halsey.

"When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box."

Its name was Cortana. Her child. Cortana even looked like Miranda. But she had done wrong by Miranda. She would not estrange Cortana, her second daughter, her second chance.

Yes, her SPARTANs were her children too, but they, they had grown up too fast. Humanity had needed them, so they had been sent to answer the call. She loved them, but they were still developing. They could not become truly human until they had become heroes. And once they weren't needed, they could step off of the pedestal and return to eye level. They would be her last children, though.

This was her vow. Pain was the only thing that followed in her footsteps. The writhing of the clone had taught her that.

* * *

**A/N: Well, should I put this in the first chapter?**

**And yes, I am well aware that Halsey edited her Demeter and Demophon story a bit. I do my research.**

**However, I don't speak Italian, and don't trust GoogleTranslate. If someone wants to tell me how to say 'When the game is over, the king and pawn go into the same box.' in Italian, that would be much appreciated. Thanks.**

* * *

**Again, for those of you who don't understand my Greek, the title is Sofia, or wisdom, for obvious reasons.**


	3. Αμαραντος

**A/N: I just keep coming up with these, and since no one has told me to combine them, I have another chapter. Enjoy.**

**Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.**

* * *

Αμαραντος

* * *

The man pressed the syringe into the child's arm. It was tragic, really. The boy had met a monstrous dog in a dark side road. Being a mere child, the foam dripping from the beast's mouth meant nothing. Neither did the menacing growl and furious leap. Only the creature's mouth full of knives and caught the boy's attention. And by then it was too late.

The boy had waddled to his mother, complaining of the bite of a dog with foaming teeth. The mother had panicked - nearly gone into epileptic shock. She'd rushed to the local doctor, who took one look at the boy and shook his head. The mother had raised her head to the heavans and loosed a wail of horrid loss, questioning her God's grand design.

And God had shone down, calling the man with the mother's helpless wail. God gave the man a chance, and the man had a prepared mind. The man had been studying rabies. He had a vaccine, but needed a willing subject. So when chance favoured his prepared mind, he took his inoculant and injected it into the boy. It would be a few weeks, but his rabies cure should save the boy's life.

* * *

Halsey stepped into the cool atrium. An AI greeted her and tried to check her in. Halsey overrode it. This was a surprise visit.

She had tried to change the world with a syringe, but unlike the rabies vaccine, the polio vaccine, even the Pyrrhic chemotherapy, she had done more harm than good. The thirty-three who lived became legends, but the rest, they died or worse. And sorry as she was, atonement was impossible.

So she merely tried to comfort them.

She found Fhajad first. He was ruined in body, but his mind was still intact. She hugged him anyway. Tried to convey the love and the sorrow and the regret. But he was still a SPARTAN. She wasn't sure he felt it.

So she bent close and looked him in the eyes. The soft, "I'm sorry," slipped from her lips before she could think. Fhajad just kept looking, as though he couldn't hear.

* * *

The clones were pitiful. How she could have consented to them, Halsey knew not. Rationally, she could defend her actions with ease. But even a genius' mind is not entirely rational.

To condemn seventy-five organisms - original or not - to death, disorder, and sickness was abhorrent. And the parents . . . Maybe she deserved her punishment.

But Halsey knew that secrecy was too important. And so was the whole program. Twenty-five years, and they had barely won. Without her SPARTANs, her children, humanity's last citadel would have fallen long ago.

* * *

It was green and grey and pink and white and beautiful and painful and lovely all at once. She loved him. It was that simple. Rationale could be damned for all she cared.

Keyes had been special. She's known about that since day one, when she chose him. He could keep a secret. Like their relationship.

But that wasn't why she chose him this time. She couldn't say, exactly, but she blamed the moon.

They'd sat outside, staring at Luna when it started. When they started. The champagne had also helped. But now, champagne be damned. He was enough of a drug for her, a way to lose her head and love life. Love him.

And so she was glad. Glad that she was conceiving in war. Because the child was his. Theirs. She loved him, and she would love the child, even if it detested her and her work.

* * *

Prophecy.

* * *

She loved them all equally, but she loved John more equally than all the rest. Parents weren't supposed to have favourites, but she wasn't supposed to be a parent. She supposed she'd broken both rules.

But when he rescued her, she didn't care. The lethargy of cryosleep hurt her mind, so she showed appreciation for him rescuing her best she could.

She suspected that John was confused by her seemingly crazed manner, but they were escaping a Covenant armada. No time to explain, just run.

* * *

And remember.

* * *

She remembered when she'd found out that he had fought Helljumpers. He was fourteen, and there were four of them.

She was furious that O.N.I. had seen fit to test her greatest creation - her children - against trained O.D.S.T.s. Did they doubt her?

* * *

But now, fighting this Elite, it seemed like excellent training.

So too did the terror of watching him test the MJOLNIR system; surpassing her expectations and flabbergasting her political opponents was _nothing_ compared to watching John almost die. But now it seemed necessary.

The quick thaw had really messed up her thought process.

* * *

**A/N: Short, flighty, but I feel it was important to write Halsey this way for some of the musings in this chapter.**

**As always, please review to tell me what I'm doing wrong (including grammatical and factual errors) so that I can fix it and what I'm doing right so that I can keep doing it.**

**And, for those of you who don't speak Greek, the title is Amarantos, meaning unfading. Again, for ovious reasons.**


End file.
